From January 2010 to September 2018 Nancy Flanagan, an education writer and consultant focusing on teacher leadership, wrote about the inconsistencies and inspirations, the incomprehensible, immoral and imaginative, in American education. She spent 30 years in a K-12 music classroom in Hartland, Mich., and was named Michigan Teacher of the Year in 1993. She is a digital
organizer for IDEA (Institute for Democratic Education in America). You can follow her on Twitter @nancyflanagan.

Recently in Detroit Public Schools Category

December 22, 2017

Why are there no mushrooms, mold or mice where wealthy white children go to school? Freedom demands a collective effort to engage the young people of Detroit in building a new world, for themselves and us, in which we do not permit human beings to be poisoned in the first place.

August 16, 2016

There is no "right to teach," in a public institution, for compensation. None. Nobody has the right to decide--hey! I think I'd like to work with children, mold their little minds. I'm smart! I'd probably be great--with no preparation or experience whatsoever. The "right to teach" and "teacher shortage" blah-blah masks a darker truth. We're not willing to solve problems--health care, clean water, racism, rampant childhood poverty, neglected schools--with hard work and investment in our collective future.

June 30, 2016

All the good intentions in the world cannot override the conversion of a long-established public good into a profit-making commodity. I no longer believe that there is a magic legislative formula that will allow "good" charters to exist harmoniously with public schools. I now understand that the end game of unfettered charterism: privatization and exclusivity.

May 14, 2016

The Common Core is just another set of standards. We can raise and lower, tweak and replace standards until the cows come home, but until other things are in place (clean, safe classrooms, say--or books, supplies and experienced teachers), it's an exercise in blah-blah over reality. Most important: if we're going to dump everything we've been working on, let's put the rebuilding back in the hands of educators, not politicians.

February 27, 2016

A young man I spoke with in Detroit said: We used to talk, all the time, about sustainability. But that's a 20th century concept. Now we talk about flexibility, the opportunity for constant growth, change and innovation. No one solution. Why say nice things about Detroit? Detroit matters to the health of the whole state of Michigan. In fact, Detroit matters to the entire nation. If we can't solve problems with flagship businesses like the auto industry, or the problem of educating kids in deep poverty, we're in trouble.

February 24, 2016

So there's the micro-question: What does it take to keep something successful and amazing going--providing the same critical services, contributing to the value of the Detroit community and students' lives? Do you do whatever it takes, and deal with the consequences as they come? Then there are the macro-questions: When resources from a public system build something wonderfully useful, addressing a social need with persistence and imagination, what do you lose when you turn over control and management to a private company? What strings are attached when you supplement public monies with private funding?

January 27, 2016

Affluence makes even mediocre teaching look good and poverty can make masterful teaching appear mediocre. It takes many clock hours within classroom walls to decipher the difference. Few education change-makers and upper crust teachers dedicate that kind of time to our neglected classrooms. The essential resource that is missing is our presence. Detroit's inhumane classroom conditions didn't occur overnight; they existed for at least a generation. Where were we?

January 14, 2016

It's wrong to characterize this string of protests in Detroit as selfish actions taken by a minority of teachers--or a union-driven overreaction to a belt-tightening. There's a lot at stake here, beginning with the survival of a major public school system. Think this could never happen in your state or district? There doesn't seem to be much to prevent collapse of public education in Detroit, except for the professional courage of its teachers.

January 11, 2016

Today, a group of Detroit teachers--fed up with Darnell Earley, the same Emergency Manager who presided over the Flint water scandal, and a raft of further harmful offenses to real Detroit children and their education--organized a sick-out. They did so in frustration, knowing full well they would be accused of greediness, or keeping children from their federally subsidized meals. They did so knowing they will be labeled "unprofessional," led around by their unions (false)--when their actions represent what is ultimately the core of what professionalism means: autonomy over important work.